Xtreme - Vector Design Edition

[pauland]

Inspired by the recent poll on the forums about suggestions for extending Xtreme's website capabilities, it's made me think of another possible route for Xara to take.

Instead of us only having an Xara Xtreme 5.0 bloat edition, how about a product that actually concentrated on vector design and nothing else?

No website export.
No Flash generation.
No bitmap filters and photo editing.

Charge as much as you do now for Xtreme 4.0, but put developoment money that now goes into all these non-vector features into improving the vector toolset and general design focused improvement (cough, layers, etc..).

I'd almost certainly switch my money to Xtreme - Vector Design Edition.

I'm not actually against the upgrades made in XXV4, but the product seems to be losing focus and I'd rather there were separate editions that focused on peoples real needs rather than taking the product into "jack of all trades territory".

Would this focus mean that people wouldn't use it for web development if html generation and bitmap handling were removed? No - I think not. I use Dreamweaver for most of my web stuff and use Extreme for graphics. Do I use Xtreme for web photo editing? No, I only really use it for cropping and cutting out bitmap shapes. Do I use it for flash animations? No, not at all.

Would I like Xtreme to be interoperable with Adobe products - you bet, but it's hampered right now particularly with the primitive layer handling.

I really would like to see the vector emphasis restored on the product - not at the expense of people who like the non-vector features - but equally I don't want the vector handling and design oriented features suffering because of the effort spent on non-vector features (and my feeling is that it has suffered).

So why not have Xtreme - Vector Design Edition and Xtreme Home Designer?

Interesting debate, eh?

I wouldn't be upset if you called the vector oriented version "Xara Design Studio". I recall there used to be some vector software that concentrated on vectors named just that. ;-)

Paul

[tonylondon]

I'd agree with that.
Tony

[alexbozhenov]

Completely agree! Having such vector tool means to gain the graphic designer's world.

Alex

[ss-kalm]

How is that even possible?............ You can only spend the budget once. Going in two directions still means two sets of upgrades. Doesn't it make more sense to put them into one good product.

....not actually against the upgrades made in XXV4, but the product seems to be losing focus and I'd rather there were separate editions that focused on peoples real needs rather than taking the product into "jack of all trades territory".

Just who's focus is it losing? Which people. The product is much better than it's ever been for me, and I have been using it since CorelXara 1.1 - Is that supposed to be bad.

The product does more now than it ever has. No tools have been removed, so it's not possible that it is a worse product than it was. Although I do admit that it has changed some peoples workflow.

I don't think we need to go the Vista route, where we have 27 flavours of the same program. That makes it a nightmare for upgrading/patching and technical support generally.

How about letting Xara decide how they upgrade the programme, then you can decide whether or not to spend your money on an upgrade.

"You can't please all of the people all of the time". - I think that a recent poll showed beyond a doubt that in this instance the majority of users were pleased with what Xara produced.

In the next iteration, maybe you will be more pleased.

[pauland]

Keith,

I realise that Xara (Magix) are in an awkward position - a lot of home users and hobbyists who love Xara and a lesser number of people who make money from such tools as Xara. The home users are extremely budget sensitive, while the latter are less so. I'm not a professional designer but if I set about counting the replacement cost of the software I own for web development (virtually all Adobe) it would come to probably $2,000+ . I suspect there's quite a few others similar to me, who can probably fund a more focussed tool because they already have and use other dedicated software for specific tasks. To Xaras credit we return to Xtreme simply because it's a great vector editor, but as time goes buy that functionality isn't advancing to match that of the professional software it competes against and who's workflow it must fit with.

There's no reason why Xara can't have a common code base and split the feature set. They already do this of sorts with the standard and pro product set. Problem is that the Pro version is as dominated by the extra stuff as the cheaper one and what I perceive as the more professional demand is being swamped by broadening the appeal of Xtreme for the home/hobbyist market.

I think the professional demands for a more streamlined product with improved vector facilities and foccused on design are being pushed aside right now because I think Xtreme sales are dominated by the home/hobbyist market.

I think that many people who make their living mainly from web design, in particular would appreciate this change and would be happy to support the targetted development. It doesn't mean that these developers would fund all of the software themselves, similarly home users wouldn't be funding what's important to designers.

I think that the broadening of Xtreme has probably saved the software by pulling in lots of new revenue. The problem is that it's taken away core development from the pure design side. I'm suggesting that Xara could find a path to allow the software to be funded in the direction that will help it maintain a strong niche in a professional workflow, by those who are already spending a lot on their software tools and need Xtreme to fit that workflow well and be better in the design niche than it's competitors and not fall behind them by being a bargain basement suite of tools in one program.

If you look at Xtremes professional competitors - they focus on specific tasks and concentrate on interoperability. They do overlap, admittedly, but then again just one program in Adobe's suite costs more than Xtreme and most professionals will own a whole suite of Adobe software.

Paul

[w00dy]

Instead of us only having an Xara Xtreme 5.0 bloat edition, how about a product that actually concentrated on vector design and nothing else?

No website export.
No Flash generation.
No bitmap filters and photo editing.

Paul

Bloatware... in the majority of cases today, there is so much processing power available, that bloated or not, applications rarely extend a processor to its limits. If you try running modern apps on a five year old dinosaur with not a lot of memory, then most things grind to a halt. For me, Xara still works PDQ compared to any other graphics app so to call it bloatware is a bit unfair I do feel. The three "add-ons" listed above are really quite nice to have around but that's my opinion.

I take the point about interoperability but what are they interoperating with... other Adobe products? Where do Adobe sit on this one, are they going to lose a lot of sleep if Xara doesn't interact easily with their products, I can't imagine they'll lose a minutes sleep, they're the market leader, why bother about competitive minnows. Put the boot on the other foot, every Xara user would love a faultless Xara to Adobe import/export but to make that happen, it'd have to be a big wad of Magix money thrown at it. Will they do it, I somehow don't think so, they're concerned with units sold and satisfying Mr Average user is their main aim.

[pauland]

By bloatware I actually mean that the facility exists - not it's impact on Xtreme's speed.

Adobe doesn't care about Xtreme. The people who do care about interoperability are those of us who are taking assets produced by others using Adobe products, or who use Xtreme to produce assets for use in an Adobe product. If you are asked to do some work for a 3rd party, the formats supported by Adobe products rule.

For example, photoshop and Flash now work pretty well together. I would like to see the layer functionality that we see in Adobe products appear in Xtreme and I'd like to be able to take web designs, all layered up and march them straight into flash in the way that I can with photoshop.

Working in such an environment Xtremes bells and whistles don't help much and the enhancements that could go into the design and vector manipulation side really aren't happening.

I think Xara has done a FAB job with XXV4 - the software has been expanded for the home user and hobbyist, but continuing that trend is dangerous because it's not helping people working in a commercial environment to fit and keep Xtreme in their workflow.

Xtreme has to be interoperable and better at vector work than it's Adobe rivals. It's still better for vector work, but the company emphasis has moved from that core.

Others are looking to expand the non-vector functionality of Xtreme. I'm just saying maybe there's a way forward to bring Xtreme back to where it's an exceptional vector tool working well in a pipeline, rather than one software program trying to be a suite. I'm not asking for This extra stuff to be scrapped, just split the product so professional revenue can fund more core vector and design development to keep Xtreme right up the in the workflow.

Paul

Paul

[Tafi]

I appreciate that in todays market a program must offer as many options as possible to capture a big as slice as possible of the consumer market..I personally have only ever used the 'vector' part of Xara as my interest is in drawing accurate representations of historical uniforms etc. and would certainly like to see more development in the simpler tools, particularly transperancy ..I would love to be able to move the arms apart in the ellipse mode, I would also like to see a method, of , maybe just feathering one edge of a shape i.e one side of a square. another is the Corel concept of dragging a shape to transfer attributes etc.

[PatentGuy]

I AGREE!

I just wrote in another thread that I would like to see the html features separated from Xtreme graphic software. I would love for Xara to make a web editor that is usable, but not at the expense of vector graphics.

I will not use Xtreme (in its current form) to generate web pages. It does not meet my needs. I hand code parts of my pages. Xtreme does not read the html file, but has its own source code, which means that I have to re-hand code the pages if I make any changes in Xtreme.

I think that some of the photo features are desirable in a vector graphics version. I often use photos to develop my line drawings and the new tools in XP4 are helpful. But, I don't want Xtreme to be a replacement for Photoshop.

I define bloatware as software that gets bigger and slower as more and more features are added. XtremePro 4 is slower on my computer than XP3. Not by much, but it is slower. Sure, some of the features are nice, but, as someone who uses the software to earn a living, Xtreme is becoming less attractive.

[tonylondon]

Keith,
I think the professional demands for a more streamlined product with improved vector facilities and foccused on design are being pushed aside right now because I think Xtreme sales are dominated by the home/hobbyist market....

I think that the broadening of Xtreme has probably saved the software by pulling in lots of new revenue. The problem is that it's taken away core development from the pure design side.

I think this is the nub of the problem as I see it. Xara has to look to its potential markets, spreading its development effort thinly. That's business. Xara are smart enough to add in just enough vector drawing improvements to keep people like me buying the upgrades, but has lost its cutting edge in the area of vector drawing, the only part that really interests me.